REVIEWING THE (UK) CHARTS 2018
Hello and welcome to a little segment I do ever so often where I review the British top 40. Yes, I've upped the ante on this one, mostly because there's no new top 10 arrivals. The ever-so-strange UK charts have been somewhat stagnant over the Winter period, so I need to grab some new material from the 30 less-popular songs in the UK. So, welcome to Reviewing the Charts, and before we get into the new arrivals, let's talk about the top ten. Top 10 *At number one, we still have the dreary duet "Perfect" by Ed Sheeran and Beyoncé, which gets more unbearably boring each listen. *Ed Sheeran helps clear Christmas music out, pushing Eminem to the runner-up spot with the decent track "River". *Somehow, the number-three spot is still "Man's Not Hot" by Big Shaq, making pretty decent gains as well. Can this dead meme be treated the same as the Christmas music and be gone by February? Please? *Rita Ora's "Anywhere" proves that the UK is still lapping up Vocaloid drops at number four, again rising up due to Christmas songs fading away swiftly. *"Havana" by Camila Cabello featuring Young Thug making leaps from number 12 to rounding out the top five, although this did top the chart a few weeks back, and I'm glad it did. More about that song next month, hint-hint. *Clean Bandit takes their boring "I Miss You" with Julia Michaels from 18 to number six, thanks to extreme losses in the candy-cane market. *If you follow the US charts, you may notice that Christmas music isn't as dominant as it is here, and this is especially true with "17" by MK, which missed the mark in terms of possible pun use as it went up 16 spaces to number seven. *"Barking" by Ramz has gone up more than 20 spaces to retain its spot in the top ten at number eight. *"Wolves" by Selena Gomez and Marshmello has re-peaked at number nine, climbing by 11 spaces. *To finish the top ten, we have the re-peak of "Let You Down" by NF, a Christian rapper. No wonder he didn't suffer as much in the Christmas domination, only climbing 15 spaces this week. Climbers In terms of major climbs, we don't really have as much as you'd think considering the Christmas explosion in December finally taking a swift kick in the streaming numbers, and we've already covered "Havana", "I Miss You", "17", "Barking", "Wolves" and "Let You Down", but we still have a nice selection. "Dimelo" by X Factor ''winners Rak-Su featuring Wyclef Jean and Naughty Boy climbed 13 spaces, barely missing the top ten at 11, and despite a weak Wyclef Jean verse, I can't say I'm not happy about this at all. "rockstar" by Post Malone and 21 Savage climbs 15 spaces back to 12, which I won't spoil my opinions on. Cough, cough, best list. "New Rules" by Dua Lipa has a massive spark of 24 spaces, getting back up there to 13. "Naked" by James Arthur had a similar boost of 22 up to 14. "Silence" by Marshmello and Khalid had a 17-space boost up to 16. "No Words" by Dave featuring MoStack somehow flew up 23 spots to 17. I say somehow because I've never even heard this song in full. At all. Not on the radio, not even on the British music TV channel, 4Music. Is it really doing that well in streaming that airplay means nothing to it right now? Talking about songs that I have yet to hear the full studio version of, "Blinded by Your Grace, Pt. 2" by Stormzy featuring MNEK storms up 15 spots to finish off the top 20. What's with vaguely religious hip-hop songs being two-parters recently? First Kanye with "Father Stretch My Hands" and now this? Other than that, "River", "Man's Not Hot" and "Anywhere" also had small boosts in the top 10 due to the Christmas boom. Fallers There are none. Wow, this really wasn't the best week to start on, huh? Dropouts Christmas songs are dropping out from the top 10 and acting like nothing happened. Seriously, every single Christmas song in the top 40 last week is gone. I'm not complaining about most of them, I hate Christmas music other than a few exceptions, some of which dropped the hardest this week. From the top 10, we have "Last Christmas" by Wham! dropping out from the runner-up spot, as well as the sad goodbyes from "All I Want for Christmas is You" by Mariah Carey and "Fairytale of New York" by The Pogues featuring Kristy MacColl from the number four and five spots respectively. I'm not as mournful, however, for the losses of "Do They Know it's Christmas?" by Band Aid, "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" by Brenda Lee and "Merry Christmas Everyone" by Shakin' Stevens. Other big Christmas gravestones dug this week are "Step into Christmas" by Elton John, "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" by Michael Bublé, "Driving Home for Christmas" by Chris Rea, the traditional glam-rock sing-a-longs "I Wish it Could be Christmas Everyday" by Wizzard and "Merry Xmas Everybody" by Slade, "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" by Andy Williams, "One More Sleep" by Leona Lewis, "Happy Xmas (War is Over)" by John and Yoko with the Plastic Ono Band, "White Christmas" by Bing Crosby, "Wonderful Christmastime" by our second Beatle here, Paul McCartney, "Santa Tell Me" by Ariana Grande, "Mary's Boy Child" and "Oh My Lord" by Boney M as well as some of the best modern takes on Christmas songs I've heard in the form of the sad alt-rocker "Christmas Lights" by Coldplay and the delightful jazz-pop of "Underneath the Tree" by Kelly Clarkson. But that's not all in terms of Christmas - Michael Bublé has had its last bite of his annual chart success drop out with "Holly Jolly Christmas", as well as pop divas of new and old, Kylie Minogue with "Santa Baby" and Sia with the awful "Santa's Coming for Us". There are no other dropouts this week, so let's get straight to the handful of new arrivals. NEW ARRIVALS Starting off our new arrivals, we have... #40 - "The Greatest Show" - Hugh Jackman, Keala Settle, Zac Efron, Zendaya and The Greatest Showman Ensemble This is a song from a musical called ''The Greatest Showman ''that has surprisingly modern production and an intro of absolutely wonderful horns with anthemic handclaps and killer vocals from who I'm assuming is either Hugh or Zac. The group vocals are great, as to be expected from a musical. Lyrically, it's pretty obviously bland motivational nonsense but it doesn't hurt this delightful piece of pop. Check it out. #37 - "Never be the Same" - Camila Cabello This song's radio edit is the exact same length of the original. Huh. Anyway, the song itself has a dull sub-bass and some disappointingly weak vocals from Camila, and a downright painful shriek in the pre-chorus, some robotic autotune on her voice in the chorus and fake-as-all-hell handclaps as well as bland trap percussion. After "Havana", this is an incredibly underwhelming track, and I hope this doesn't end up on her upcoming album. Skip it. #30 - "Him & I" - G-Eazy and Halsey Are you expecting a good song from one of the blandest rappers of all time and one of the most insufferable tryhards of the 2010s, let alone a good romantic duet? Well, if you were, you'd be very disappointed. Cringeworthy lines delivered pretty terribly from G-Eazy about Halsey cutting his penis off, as well as a forgettable hook and bridge from Halsey. If you noticed, I didn't talk about the instrumentation at all, because essentially there is none. I'd say skip it but the verses are pretty unintentionally funny so at least look them up on Genius. Next. #29 - "Bouff Daddy" - J Hus This song has a stupid name. Other than that nonsensical title, J Hus sings about people calling him a "bouff daddy" like an autotuned Big Shaq, but brings some decent verses to the table, I suppose, about starting from the bottom and rising up as a star, like the rest of his album. It's obvious this song was written pretty late into the album's production, because you've gotta be running out of ideas to be rapping, no, singing, no, ''even saying the words "bouff daddy". The pre-chorus is pretty catchy though, and the Jamaican-inspired beat has a pretty nice synth melody sound in there, even if it is very basic. It's not really that bad, there's worse electro-hop AND reggae-rap you could be listening to. #28 - "This is Me" - Keala Settle and The Greatest Showman Ensemble As you can tell, this is another track from that musical, but this one is more sombre and low-key for the first verse, which is good enough, until Keala starts belting over the grand percussion, with beautiful gospel-like vocals from the ensemble. Maybe this is just my soft spot for musicals talking but I love this song, with its subtle but effective guitar throughout the final chorus, which is amazingly triumphant. This song makes me want to see The Great Showman and that's a damn good sign. Listen to this. #24 - "Breathe" - Jax Jones featuring Ina Wroldsen When the single art for your song is self-branded Tic-Tacs, it isn't really the best first impression. Jax Jones had another hit this year which annoyed the hell out of me, both musically and because of its concept alone. I don't get why Jax Jones has his name on that song; it's Raye singing over a sample that has been changed so little that I don't notice at all, even listening to both songs simultaneously. Give Raye the main credit, you lazy, talentless, credit-hogging hack. Is "Breathe" an improvement? Not really, it's just a blend of modern EDM trends, with vocals from Wroldsen sounding a bit too much like Sia. The hook is just plain annoying, honestly, there's only too many vapid 'da-da-da' choruses I can take. Otherwise, this is nothing but bland EDM crap you should probably skip. Conclusion So, overall, the UK charts were pretty favourable towards my personal pet peeves in terms of Christmas music, even though some of the losses there were pretty unfortunate, however the new arrivals were pretty lackluster - especially Jax Jones and Camila Cabello, who is getting the Worst of the Week for her underwhelming second single. J Hus and G-Eazy are too funny for me to hate, although G-Eazy's definitely copping a dishonourable mention. So yeah, both Best of the Week and the honourable mention are going to tracks from The Greatest Showman ''for their motivational pop tunes that just tickle my musical-loving sweet spot. This is where I'd usually conclude, right? Well, nope. This is where Spectrum Pulse concludes. To separate myself from his great show, ''Billboard Breakdown, I'm gonna do something a bit different. First of all, let's take a look at the Australian top ten. Australian Top 10 The top ten is pretty similar to the UK charts but much more similar to the US, I'd say. *You've got "Perfect" by Ed Sheeran and Beyoncé at number-one, a non-mover and non-stoppable worldwide hit. *"Havana" by Camila Cabello and Young Thug at the runner-up spot, also an Australian chart-topper. *"River" by Eminem featuring Ed Sheeran at number three. *Probably the strangest entry here, there's the absolutely terrible number-four spot "I Fall Apart" by Post Malone. I don't get why Australians are liking this - or why anybody is liking this, for that matter. *"Silence" by Marshmello and Khalid is finishing off the top five. *Post Malone is showcasing his perplexing starpower in Australia with the number six spot, "rockstar" with 21 Savage. *"Meant to Be" by Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line is also a pretty weird entry here at number seven. *Number eight is held by NF's "Let You Down". *The number nine spot is shared by Selena Gomez and Marshmello for "Wolves". *Rounding off the top ten is "Feel it Still", a funky fluke indie hit by Portugal. The Man at number ten. AUSTRALIAN NEW ARRIVALS In terms of new entires, the Australian charts are even more stagnant, and I'm looking at the top 50. Despite the three returning entries - "Mi Gente" by J Balvin and Willy William, "Stargazing" by Kygo and Justin Jesso and "Lay it on Me" by Vance Joy - there's only two new arrivals, one of which is "This is Me", debuting at #34, which I've already talked about. Hence, let's touch on our one new entry. #48 - "Cola" - CamelPhat and Elderbrook Now this is one of the strangest dance tracks I've heard become a hit, which it is in the UK, unsurprisingly, as the UK charts tend to be one of the weirdest of the bunch. This eccentric club banger has an anti-climactic beat drop, percussion that resembles "Lemon" by N.E.R.D., vocals that sound like they're straight out of a Gorillaz record, lyrics that make little to no sense, a whole lot of white noise, synth tones that sound like badly-compressed phone recordings of an ocean... It's really a trip through a whole lot of quirkiness and I kind of like it right now, but I feel it will grow on me in the weeks to come. Never would I think a track this experimental and off-the-wall become a top 20 hit in the UK, let alone crossover to the top 40 of many European countries. This hasn't hit the US Hot 100 yet, but it's doing really well on the dance charts, so I hope this crosses over. I'd recommend it. Every week for the month of January, I'm going to go over the top 10, climbers, fallers, dropouts and new arrivals in the UK charts, as well as talking about a random foreign country's top ten and their new arrivals. I decided to play it safe with Australia this time, but you can suggest a country in the comments or @cactusinthebank on Twitter. Thank you for reading. See ya! Category:2018 Category:Mrs Chanandler Bong Category:Music Category:Songs Category:Reviewing the Charts